Topiary art or gardening is a very ancient practice or art of training plants by patient development to grow in assorted and varied architectural, sculptural, geometric and animal shapes or the like by a combination of horticultural techniques including bending, cutting, clipping, pruning and shearing of plants. This highly rewarding and visually attractive garden art form has for the most part been practiced in boxwoods, yews, privet hedges and to a lesser extent on juniper, arbor-vitae and rosemary for miniature works.
Topiary art has been practiced since the Egyptian, Greek and Roman Empires. Although topiary art receded after the Roman Empire, it again became a fashionable gardening endeavor in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries and became an essential feature throughout Europe, especially in Italian gardens and in the Netherlands. With the ascension of William and Mary of Orange to the English throne in 1689, topiary art became a main feature of English gardens for about the next two hundred years. Although many examples of this fine art remain throughout England, Levens Hall, in Westmorland, and Hampton Court, the royal palace on the Thames in London, stand as remarkable examples of this art.
In the United States topiary art was brought to the colonies by the English and examples of the art are found in the formal gardens in Colonial Williamsburg. The height of topiary art in America was probably the estate gardens of Hollis H. Hammerwell in Wellesley, Massachusetts, although many adherents to the art were found in the South and also in California. The art has unfortunately, however, once again suffered a decline in the late 19th and 20th Centuries.
Although the art has been practiced over the centuries by gardeners working free-hand without any forms, the art has also involved the preparation of elaborate forms to be used to give form and substance to the shape desired for a plant being trained. Thus, practice of the topiary art has involved not only the skills of highly trained gardeners but of metal workers to plan and construct these necessary forms.
Decline of the practice of topiary art has been caused not only because of the rarity of gardeners skillfully trained as topiarists but also because of the lack of essentially skilled metal workers to plan and construct the necessary wire forms for the topiarist. Moreover, the forms are generally of bulky construction in order to produce pleasing, attractive and intricate designs and therefore not readily or easily transported from one place to another. Thus, a sufficiently skilled metal worker would be required at each location this art is practiced in order to produce the necessary forms for the topiarist. It will be appreciated that to employ both a topiarist as well as a metal worker at each site is quite expensive and this impracticality has in part contributed to the decline in the practice of this pleasing art form.
Many who would like to practice or learn this art form find it economically impractical to have on their house staff a metal worker to produce forms for practice of the art. It would, therefore, be highly desirable if those who wished to practice or learn the art could have ready access to topiary forms. However, because of the size and construction of such forms, it has been generally economically impractical to transport such forms from one location to another. By their very nature the forms are required to be mostly open yet sufficiently rigid to support and train the plants to the desired shape. Thus, the forms generally have been shaped-forms of heavy gauge wire permanently welded or held together to provide sufficient structural integrity. Therefore, it has not heretofore been practical for a supplier in one location to produce and build topiary forms for use at another remote location or for such topiary forms to be easily and cheaply transported, such as by mail or similar delivery services, to intended users at remote locations.
It is therefore highly desirable that topiary forms be available that although of sufficient structural strength and rigidity for use in topiary art, can be readily and easily knocked-down or disassembled and cheaply shipped or transported. It is also most desirable that such topiary forms be available which are easily assembled or constructed on site without the need for experience or cumbersome equipment and which can be readily assembled by the intended user without requiring an inordinate amount of talent or skill.